It's a really tricky and incredibly sensitive topic <tinfoil>which'll be why the CIA chose it</tinfoil> but I do think there is a little truth to this point:

"It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning."

Right now rape is rightly considered an abominable crime, but I do worry that if (as I have heard discussed in this case) consensual sex with someone that you say you love but don't, or consensual sex where the condom splits, gets labelled as "rape" then that sort of dilutes the impact a bit.

However... having sex with someone while they are asleep, as mentioned in the article, does warrant the term "rape" IMO.

So you can have a one night stand with someone, fall asleep, wake up the next morning and attempt to slip it in again before they wake up???!

Sorry but that's a big rapey Fail in my book. When would the cut off point arise - "Well officer she agreed to sex on Friday so I thought it was fine to just stuff it in when she bent down to pick up the mail on Tuesday morning!"

"For the offence of rape to have been committed the defendant must have penetrated you without your consent, or continued to penetrate you after you withdrew your consent, and the defendant must not have reasonably believed that you were consenting." Definition of rape from Sexual Offences Act.

See - if Assange reasonably believed that they had given their consent, which it MAY have been reasonable to assume, then it wasn't rape from a legal perspective in the UK. Swedish laws may differ.

It's an interesting one right enough.

My standpoint is that Assange is being stitched up AND that he's a creepy assed mofo who needs a slap for what he may have done to those women - rape or no rape.

So you can have a one night stand with someone, fall asleep, wake up the next morning and attempt to slip it in again before they wake up???!

What about if the person was your long-term partner? Never been woken up by your partner *ahem* doing something sexual, or vice versa? If My girlfriend of 17 years woke up to find me touching her breasts or elsewhere, technically that's sexual assault, right, as she hadn't given consent?

I'm also genuinely not sure of how anyone could 'penetrate' someone without them waking up?

I just think when you start talking in black and white absolutes and too easily throwing words like rape around it starts to potentially demean the perceived seriousness of genuinely horrific crimes. I don't know what Assange did, but plenty of people seem to have already decided he's a rapist.

I know someone who was falsely accused of rape and it was absolutely horrific for them. This is not in any way meant to demean or diminish the experience of rape victims.

My standpoint is that Assange is being stitched up AND that he's a creepy assed mofo who needs a slap for what he may have done to those women - rape or no rape.

What about if the person was your long-term partner? Never been woken up by your partner *ahem* doing something sexual, or vice versa? If My girlfriend of 17 years woke up to find me touching her breasts or elsewhere, technically that's sexual assault, right, as she hadn't given consent?

not under the wording of the law, it is reasonable to assume consent, but if she was to say "No" when realizing whats happening (edit: and you continued) that could constitute a sexual assault.

After 17 years with, hopefully, an impeccable track record in your relationship of respect, non-violence, non-agression, love and intimacy I reckon you could probably play the "does not reasonably believe that consent has been given" card there.

I don't agree with this, but just for balance I was thinking of a reverse scenario - You have a one night stand with woman and wake up the next day to find she's giving you head, I think a lot of men would enjoy this. Perhaps in a VERY misguided way he thought the woman might enjoy being woken in such a way. Still crosses the line for me though.

Agree with those of you that think he might have been stitched up because of who he is.

Ok thanks for the clarification, but at what point during those 17 years did it become reasonable to assume consent? Was there a particular day, before which if I did it I was a sickening sex criminal, but after which it was absolutely fine?

I'm surprised that even Galloway has pitched in on this - any MP likely to get a pasting expressing anything other than the "standarised" approved view.

Whatever the truth of the rape allegations, Assange must be seriously freaked out to have bolted to the Ecuadorian embassy to seek assylum. Given the gradations of seriousness of rape offences that the Beeb refer to under Swedish law, you'd think he'd just go back and try and clear his name. The worst outcome (of the rape case) would be a few years in jail and lost reputation.

Strange choice, Ecuador... Has he looked at an atlas. Given what he has published on wikileaks, you'd think he'd choose somewhere a long way from the reach of the US...

"reasonably" is not a black and white thing. It's contextual. It provides a route for common sense in a lot of UK law.

That's kind of my point Stoner, in the law it seems there are grey areas, whereas many people seem to want to talk in absolutes. I can understand the reasoning of not wanting to tolerate or legitimise any form of abuse, but I'm not sure it's actually that helpful.

I feel pretty uncomfortable talking about these matters for fear of being branded a 'rape-excuser' or something - I don't think that's conducive to a grown up rational debate.

Was looking for some of the reporting from the time - some of what (I think) I remember seems to be no longer on-line.

The most generous assesment would be that the Swedes had made a bit of a hash of this case...

Mr Assange is questioned by police for about an hour in Stockholm and formally told of the allegations against him, according to his lawyer at the time, Leif Silbersky. The activist denies the charges.

Surely that fulfils the requirement for an initial questioning, on Swedish soil, before officially charging him or did he skip the country too quickly. Whichever, the Swedes are saying that they need to go through the process again.

There was an accusation on a blog (will see if I can dig it out) of all manner of tampering with the accusers twitter accounts and blogs from around the time.